‘Facebook Home’ For Android Leaked Ahead Of Official Announcement [IMAGES]

Earlier on, sources revealed that Facebook’s big revelation at Facebook Home on April 4th would entail an all-new operating system from the social outfit, based on Android. Much in the way Amazon offers its own, custom OS atop Google’s open-source ecosystem, Zuck is said to be about to reveal a similar offering tailored to the world’s largest social network, and now, AndroidPolice has gotten its hands on a system software dump of the very first device said to carry the new software.

The device, the inaugural release of a new wave of so-called ‘Facebook Phones,’ was first brought to our attention early last month, and from what the source has managed to dig out of the system dump, it would appear as though Facebook Home will take the shape of a launcher replacement running over HTC’s Sense 4.5 and Android 4.1.2.

Facebook has large aspirations in mobile space, and although it finally seems to have gotten its mobile apps up to a respectable standard following years of dismal, bug-laden releases, the company still has a long way to go. Unfortunately, the sourcedidn’t manage to login to a Facebook account using the leaked software, so the juicy details still do remain under wraps. However, with Facebook welcoming the press to its headquarters on Thursday, one suspects there’ll be some fairly interesting new features on how.

Since it now seems as though Facebook Home will be little more than a launcher, the core frameworks of the device would not change whatsoever, and will instead seek to enhance the functionality to those constantly using Facebook.

Despite being unable to login, the source did find evidence that the launcher will run on other devices besides HTC’s, with permissions suggesting it will also be able to run on Samsung’s TouchWiz, as well as stock Android firmware. Once the initial fanfare has died down after Thursday, this is certainly something we could see ending up at the Google Play Store, but initially, it will likely just run on the new HTC device.

Speaking of the handset, codenamed the HTC Myst, it is expected to be a very mid-range customer indeed, packing a 4.3-inch 720p screen, 1GB of RAM, a 5-megapixel snapper, and a dual-core Snapdragon SoC.

We’ll have all the official details come Thursday, so make sure you stay tuned to our coverage here at Redmond Pie!